Chapter 5 Without a Contract

Sebastian POV

The summons reached me in the middle of a negotiation, which was either proof that the caster possessed dreadful timing or evidence that the universe had finally developed a sense of humour at my expense. Lord Carrow was still explaining why the terms he had accepted three months earlier should no longer apply to him when the first touch of foreign magic slipped beneath the wards surrounding the room. I stopped listening before he noticed I had done so, although that was hardly a sacrifice. He had been repeating himself for the better part of an hour, apparently convinced that persistence might transform a weak argument into a convincing one.

Carrow tapped the agreement with one heavily ringed finger.

“Surely there is room for interpretation.”

“There was. You used it when we negotiated.”

His adviser lowered his eyes to the papers. I suspected he had already explained this, probably in considerably less pleasant circumstances.

“The harvest has been disappointing,” Carrow persisted.

“And the payment date remains the payment date.”

I would have listened to an honest request for more time. Instead, he had spent an hour describing how unfortunate it was that my memory remained better than his convenience required.

The unfamiliar pressure returned before he could try another argument. I looked at the doorway. The wards gave no warning, yet something was approaching through them.

Carrow followed my gaze. “Are we expecting someone?”

“You tell me.”

“Nobody can interrupt us here.”

He sounded offended by the suggestion. I had approved the protections myself, and under ordinary circumstances I would have agreed with him. I reached beneath the table and touched the carved privacy rune. It was intact. So was the prohibition against hostile magic.

Something had found a route neither protection considered forbidden. I left Carrow waiting while I followed the disturbance. For the first time that evening, there was a question in the room worth answering.

The chamber had been designed for privacy. Silver ash had been worked into the dark wooden panels, the windows were sealed against listening spells, and three separate agreements prevented anyone inside from using magic against another guest. Nothing should have crossed the threshold without announcing itself. The power that found me did not force its way through those protections, however. It moved between them with such extraordinary care that none of the wards interpreted it as a threat. That, more than the unfamiliar magic brushing against my awareness, made me raise one hand and bring Lord Carrow's speech to an offended halt.

"I require the room," I told him, keeping my attention on the delicate pressure gathering at the edge of my mind. "You may consider your position elsewhere while I determine whether something has just attempted to breach protections you repeatedly assured me were impenetrable."

Carrow's face tightened, but he had enough sense to recognise that my patience had ended. He gathered his papers, muttered that we had not completed our discussion, and left with his adviser close behind him. I waited until the door closed, then reinforced the privacy seal myself and turned toward the source of the intrusion, although there was nothing visible to confront. The magic remained at a distance despite having already found me. It was neither command nor demand, and when I reached for its structure, it opened just enough to allow examination. That was the first thing that unsettled me. Magic intended to deceive rarely invited scrutiny.

I checked the privacy rune once more. Carrow's assurances had not been entirely worthless; the room still excluded listening spells. Whoever had reached me had done something more precise than breaking in. I sat in the chair he had vacated and let the foreign magic approach my outstretched hand. No image appeared above my palm. Its presence was entirely within my awareness.

I followed the outermost layer carefully, expecting concealed terms to tighten around my attention. No obligation waited beneath it. There was no exchange disguised as generosity, no punishment attached to refusal, and no cleverly worded condition that might become apparent only after acceptance. The spell had been built by someone who understood the danger of calling an unknown being and had gone to painstaking lengths to preserve the answerer's freedom. It asked for a protector, but it did not attempt to create one.

"You have gone to remarkable trouble merely to ask a question," I murmured, letting more of my awareness settle against the spell. The magic responded by revealing the intention at its centre, and for one brief moment I felt the woman who had sent it. She was older, exhausted and in pain, yet her purpose remained precise despite the strain fraying the edges of her work. She was not calling for herself. Every line of the spell curved around another presence, someone younger whom the caster was trying desperately to shield without turning the person who answered into another kind of danger. Protection freely offered. Loyalty freely continued. No ownership in either direction. It was an admirable construction. It was also incomplete.

I moved closer to the table and placed both hands against its polished surface as the weakness at the source became clearer. The caster's control was failing. Several supporting threads had already begun to collapse, and blood magic ran through the structure in quantities no healthy person would have used. Whoever had sent the call expected to die before the work was finished. She was not simply seeking help. She was spending the last of her life to find it.

Even that did not make the decision for me. I could withdraw without consequence. The moment I tested that possibility, the magic loosened and prepared to release me. Nothing pursued my retreat or attempted to exploit the sympathy the caster had allowed me to feel.

I should have let it go. I had spent too much of my life among promises designed to become prisons, and I had no intention of walking voluntarily into a stranger's unfinished spell. An unknown woman required protection, which suggested an unknown enemy, uncertain circumstances and complications that would almost certainly prove more extensive than anyone had admitted. Sensible men avoided such arrangements. Experienced Fae avoided them with particular enthusiasm. Then the spell shifted, and I felt the woman at its centre.